There are a number of concepts that are important to bear in mind in order to understand DM Data Products, Data Productions, and the LSST Software that produces them. The following sections will address those topics, with the aim of providing a knowledge base for scientists and developers who are new to LSST.

In this Chapter

Measurement

In order to understand and use LSST data products, it is important to understand the approaches and techniques that are used in the LSST pipelines to measure quantities of interest. The chapter on Measurement in the LSST Stack describes measurements of sky background, source positions, various photometric measures, as well as measures of photometric quality.

Representation of a Camera

The LSST Stack is capable of processing data from multiple cameras. To use the processing software effectively, or to augment the software to process data from a new camera, it is important to understand how a camera is modeled in software and how the data are mapped between disk into memory. See the page entitled Representation of a Camera.

Data Identifiers

Data identifiers are used by the Stack software to select to one or more data products in a data repository. The Data Identifiers page provides examples for a variety of cameras that are supported in the Stack.

LSST Data Productions

Data products from the DMS software are generated in a set of productions, or episodes of orchestrated data processing to achieve a particular purpose: issuing alerts of newly detected sources, updating the catalog of known Solar System Bodies, and so forth. The type of products, and the cadence on which they are produced, are intimately tied to the survey strategy and scientific objectives of LSST. While the LSST Stack software may be used in other contexts, for other instruments, the software organization and the nature of the data products is strongly influenced by LSST's concept of productions.